1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a coordinates input device.
2. Description of the Related Art
A device equipped with a touch panel or touch pad uses a touch operation in which the touch panel is touched with a pen or finger. The conventional touch panel does not provide the feeling of a click, which may be provided in a key switch of the keyboard. Thus, depressing on the touch panel cannot be sensed, which may induce an erroneous operation. There is a proposal to use vibration to have the operator sense his/her operation on the touch panel or pad.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application Publication No. 2002-149312 (Document 1) discloses a portable electronic device equipped with a vibratory actuator composed of a coil and a magnet. A drive signal generating circuit drives the vibratory actuator to produce vibration when an input operation on the touch panel or operation key is accepted.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application Publication No. 2003-58321 (Document 2) discloses a touch panel device equipped with a transverse displacement unit that displaces the touch panel in the transverse direction and a longitudinal displacement unit that displaces the touch panel in the longitudinal direction. Each of the transverse and longitudinal displacement units is composed of a coil, a magnet and a yoke. A touch panel driver drives the displacement units to produce various vibration patterns in the two-dimensional directions.
However, the touch panel device disclosed in Document 1 has the following problem. The coil is merely arranged above the coil. Thus, it is very difficult to obtain a satisfactory thrust and produce a large magnitude of vibration on the touch panel.
The touch panel device disclosed in Document 2 has the following problem. The magnet is merely arranged between the coil and yoke. Thus, it is very difficult to obtain a satisfactory thrust and produces a large magnitude of vibration on the touch panel. Further, the two-dimensional vibration is produced in parallel with the touch panel, so that only a limited number of vibratory patterns can be obtained.